The present invention discloses new Pyridinium-Betain compounds and their use as taste modifying compounds or taste modulators.
The non-enzymatic reaction between reducing carbohydrates and amino acids, named as the Maillard reaction, is known to generate aroma, taste and browning compounds contributing to the sensory quality of thermally processed foods, such as processed meats, cereals, malt, coffee or cocoa. Compared to aroma-active volatiles such as these, however, the information available on culinary taste or taste modifying compounds generated during thermal food processing is as yet very fragmentary. The structures and sensory qualities of Maillard reaction products exhibiting bitter, salty, sweet or umami tastes, respectively, as well as components eliciting chemesthetic effects on the tongue such as, e.g., heating, cooling, astringency etc., have rarely been described.
Recently, a novel bioassay was developed, which is based on the determination of the taste threshold of reaction products in serial dilutions of HPLC fractions (Frank, O., Ottinger, H., Hofmann T. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2001, 49, 231–238; Ottinger, H., Bareth, A., Hofmann, T. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2001, 49, 1336–1344), to select the most intense taste compounds in a thermally treated solution of xylose and primary amino acids exhibiting intense bitter taste. By application of this so called Taste Dilution Analysis (TDA) as a screening procedure for the detection of as yet unknown taste-active compounds the previously unknown 3-(2-furyl)-8-[(2-furyl)methyl]-4-hydroxymethyl-1-oxo-1H,4H-quinolizinium-7-olate could be identified as the key taste-active compound (tastant) in the reaction mixture. This novel compound exhibits an intense bitter taste at a low detection threshold of 0.00025 mmol/kg water.
Despite this, however, there is very little information about compounds generated by Maillard reactions, even though these are tasteless but show taste-modifying properties. Thus, there is a need in the art for further compounds of these types so that the sensory quality of taste-active compounds can be enhanced or reduced as necessary.